hSun ring over Oregon

hSun ring over Oregon PORTLAND, Ore. -- Portlanders were treated Tuesday to a heavenly show as the sun and atmospheric conditions combined to create a rainbow colored ring around the sun. The condition is similar to what happens when a rainbow is formed after a rainstorm, only ice crystals in the cirrus level of the atmosphere, around 25,000 feet, refract sunlight and form a corona around the sun. Prosecutor: Time reportermust testify in leak probe WASHINGTON -- A Time magazine reporter still must testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday, though Time has surrendered e-mails and other documents sought in the probe. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald urged a federal judge to send Time reporter Matt Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller to jail if they continue to refuse to reveal their sources. Last week Cooper and Miller reiterated that they would not identify their sources and requested home detention rather than prison. April, May and June passwithout a tornado death WASHINGTON -- For the first time since record-keeping started in 1950, no one was killed by a tornado in April, May or June. Normally those are the top months for tornadoes with an average of 52 fatalities, sometimes many more. "That is prime tornado time, so it's amazing," said Joe Schaefer, director of NOAA's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. It was an unusual tornado season, when the storms never really formed over the major cities in the area known as Tornado Alley, Schaefer said. Tornado Alley starts in central and northern Texas and stretches north into Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. April was about average with 137 tornadoes, but they were primarily in southern areas, Schaefer said. May was way below average with 134 tornadoes. New warning about heat LOS ANGELES -- The interior of a closed, parked car can rapidly heat up to life-threatening levels if parked in the sun, even on cooler days, a new study by California researchers shows. Their report, published Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics, showed that a car interior can heat up by an average of 40 degrees Fahrenheit within an hour, regardless of how cool the outside air might be. And 80 percent of the temperature rise occurred in the first half-hour. The researchers hope the findings convince parents and pet owners that parked cars are not safe havens even on mild days.